The Perils of Being a Pastor: Then and Now

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs early Christian writings emphasise, pastors are crucial to maintaining Christian communities and in serious practical and spiritual jeopardy if they fail to do so. They are held to unachievable standards of personal morality and religious practice. So why would anyone choose such a vocation and how could they survive it? The answers to those questions provide a useful way to investigate the widely acknowledged gap in anthropology’s study of Christianity. Being so central to Christianity as examples of Christian life and as core custodians for others’ Christian lives, the lived experience of pastors helps anchor the understanding of Christianity in what anthropologists understand best: actual individual human lives. This article takes as a case example the well-documented life of an ordinary US mainline Protestant pastor who lived through most of the twentieth century. At the intersection of dogma and pastoral practice, his life illuminates the pivotal pastoral role of maintaining congregations in their personal and spiritual lives, and in the connection between the two. The specific examples from this particular pastor’s life include the struggle against polio, a young man trying to escape gang life, unexpected death in war, and the inevitability of death for everybody. The examples underline the importance of the pastor’s assessment of congregants as both people in the mundane world and souls in the spiritual one.KEYWORDS: PastorProtestantismreligionNorth America Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The material in this paragraph comes from Box 4 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines, a collection of twenty-eight boxes of materials, organised by the author and now at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The collection includes a more-or-less complete set of his sermons; extensive notes on the liturgy used for services each week; datebooks that are often rather dry but occasionally expand into reflective writing; very extensive correspondence of both Howard and Grace; several series of newspaper columns during major moves in his life (an extended trip to Europe, being a chaplain in the military, moving to a pastorate in Japan); frequent travel diaries; and more of his working papers. Although the case material in this article deals with largely middle-class congregations, it is also worth noting that his experience was rather broad as he moved through urban and small-town America in the North and the South, and then abroad in Japan, including both middle- and working-class communities. Importantly, the core commitments within his habitus—of evangelicalism, ecumenicism, and social justice—were multiple, conflicting at times, and required periodic rebalancing as he moved through that range of pastorates. Note again that I have generally restricted myself to the documents in the archive although, as a son, my own memories sometimes serve as corroboration. Note finally that pseudonyms are used for the two detailed cases in the text.2 ‘Off the Chest’. Middletown Times Herald; September 9, 1952. Page 4.3 The material on Virginia’s case is in a folder labelled ‘Harbor’ in Box 4 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines. The folder includes Howard’s notes but also two versions of a first-person account by Virginia, one emphasizing the health aspects and one emphasizing the spiritual aspects. It is possible that Howard was working with her to publish one of the accounts, but I can find no direct information on that.4 This material comes from the ‘Moncton’ file in Box 4 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines.5 The exact details were not entirely clear, except that being point on a patrol was dangerous from ahead and from behind. This was reported in the local newspaper, but the citation is not included here to protect the pseudonyms.6 This information is also from the ‘Moncton’ file in Box 4 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines.7 See the ‘Kagawa’ folder in box 24 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines. It includes background information on Kagawa and three of the specific sermons Howard Haines preached on Kagawa in 1951, 1966, and 1972.8 The remaining copy of the sermon is undated, but is probably from the early 1980s. The themes appear frequently in his later sermons. The original sermon is in Box 4 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines, but it reappears in slightly different versions in Box 6 (which covers pastorates in Hyde Park and South Wales, New York).9 He was referring to the very successful 1960 Disney film version of the Pollyanna story starring Hayley Mills. The original book by Eleanor Porter was published in 1913, and was followed by a long series of sequels. There was also an early 1920 film version starring Mary Pickford.10 The sermon is undated—see the file ‘Sermons—Misc’ in Box 28 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines. It is possible that it was more a talk than a formal sermon.11 ‘The Renewing Power of Gratitude’. Sermon of 30 August 1995 at Oakwood Nursing Home. This was a reprise of a sermon three years earlier at Lancaster Presbyterian Church. The themes go back much further than that. Physical copies are in Box 28 of the papers of Howard and Grace Haines.